The document summarizes reports from four working groups - Transparency, Accountability, Citizen Participation, and Technology & Innovation - at a consultation meeting on open government in Ireland. Key challenges discussed were overcoming cultural barriers to transparency, engaging the public, and a lack of coordination and standards around open data. Solutions proposed included creating a central open data portal, setting common data standards, educating on the benefits of open data, and enforcing existing open data policies.

1. Inaugural Consultation Meeting
Working Group Facilitator Reports
10 July 2013, Wood Quay Venue, Dublin www.ogpireland.ie @ogpconsultirl

2. Working Group Facilitators
• Transparency – Nat O’Connor, TASC
• Accountability – Imelda Higgins BL
• Citizen Participation – Ivan Cooper, The Wheel
• Technology & Innovation – John
Handelaar, KildareStreet.com

3. Transparency- Challenges
• Culture change needed in the public service
• People need to see the value of this
information to them
• Cost will be presented as a barrier
• Limitations in existing IT systems
• Lack of filtering tools to get at data
• Current ‘user-unfriendly’ language and
presentation of data, online mess

4. Transparency - Solutions
• A ‘one-stop-shop’ approach
– Data portal; Directory of existing data and formats;
Thematic categories; Filtering tools
• Central set of good practice standards
– Responsive data formats; Data release schedules;
Immediacy of data; Common ICT across public bodies
• Consult journalists/expert data users
• Provide local data and graphics
• Run competitions to source innovation in the use of
public information from citizens

5. Accountability - Challenges
• Identifying standards
• Engaging public
• Improving financial oversight
• Identifying outcomes
• Assigning responsibility
– Over centralisation of power
• Enforcement

6. Accountability - Solutions
• International commitments/best practice
• Aarhus Convention
• Consolidation
• Public consultation on standard setting
• Wide AND Deep AND Facilitative
• EU citizens’ initiative
• Improved appointment process (merit based)

7. Accountability – Solutions cont
• Improved accountability mechanism
– Decentralisation
– Accountability institutions
– Improved access to enforcement records
– Reduced legal costs

8. Technology and Innovation
Problem Solutions
Others have more and better data before
we even get started
Bring baseline of data published up to UK
OGP phase 1 (key spatial data, budgets
and spending to be linked, etc)
Innovators and companies have no
awareness of open data, and those which
do are at the mercy of government
providers
• Somehow evangelise the possibilities
• Create central repositories
• Hold providers to quality and service
levels
Public sector data owners usually have no
idea what we’re talking about when we
mention open data, and little idea what
the point of it might be.
Several govt actors consider all this to be
Cost, not Potential Savings or Potential
Revenue
• Evangelise benefits (savings and
efficiencies)
• Find existing “Pain Points” which can
be solved by open approaches and
share solutions
• Share ‘best practice’ examples because
few exist currently

9. Technology and Innovation
Problem Solutions
Local government particularly is divided
34 ways and data is spotty at best
Gov.ie should specify a minimum
collection of common data sets and
prescribe formats and frequency of
publication
Government actors have mostly no idea
what data they even have; majority of
existing data sets are in closed (eg PDF) or
otherwise suboptimal formats
• ‘Asset register’ project
• Data.gov.ie / Local.data.gov.ie to list all
sets whether currently published or
not. Initially at least metadata for all
sets to be included as a to-do list
Data release in reusable formats is
already government policy but it’s not
happening
• Gov.ie should pin enforcement of
release on a named person or agency
• Someone needs to be able to enforce
and if necessary penalise offenders
• Govt could ban purchase of new web
sites which don’t have data channels